


Turning the tide

by JosefinTonks



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Basically a fanfic based on the fact that extremist parties are on the rise in Europe, Depression, Fascism, Hate Crimes, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Modern Era, Multi, Nazis, Politics, Racism, Socialist!Enjolras, Violence, and how the Amis are dealing with a society that, is just getting more and more hateful and harsher to live in
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-28 10:38:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2729303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JosefinTonks/pseuds/JosefinTonks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Nothing ever changes, huh?" He said. "It's the thirties all over again. Will anything ever change?"<br/>To hear him utter those words, that sort of distrust in the future, made Grantaire's heart clench. He did not answer him. He stood there, watching Enjolras shake in anger and fear of what the future would bring. </p><p>The modern AU in which a fascistic, nationalistic party is on the rise and Grantaire can only watch while the world crumbles beneath him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turning the tide

**Author's Note:**

> This is my way of dealing with the current situation in my country and a recent event effecting my private life. For those of you who are following Lucretia; I apologize. I will try to finish it soon.
> 
> If there is to many blank spaces in here, I apologize as well. AO3 is acting up.

Grantaire met Enjolras on a demonstration against cuts in the welfare budget. It was a small one, arrange by a small socialistic party in the neighborhood. It was a small crow, at tops 100 people. He would like to say that it was love at first sight, but it was not. At that time, Grantaire was not interested at all in politics. In fact, the only reason he went to the demonstration was because a friend of his had asked him to participate. Joly was his name, a scruffy looking man with large ambitions. He wanted to become a doctor, his heart beating for the suffering in the world. He was wholly against the cuts in the budget, fearing that it would sacrifice jobs and would prevent people for getting the treatment they deserved.

So Grantaire went, and got into a fierce discussion with Enjolras only minutes after being introduced to him, seconds after confessing that he was not interested in politics at all, and that he did not care about the current governments politics.

Enjolras could not accept this at all, and started to argue. Enjolras was special in that way, he always spoke out loud about his beliefs. He wanted everyone to be as engaged in the state and their affairs as he was. Grantaire remembered that he thought he was insufferable at first.

It was not until the second time they met he fell in love. He understood that Enjolras had that effect on most. When first meeting him he was intolerable, he could come across as rude and far too serious and stoic for his young age, being in his early twenties. The second time they met was on a movie night Joly arranged. It was with a lot of new people he did not know then. Combeferre, a nice man with dimples when he smiled and freckles across his tanned skin, Courfeyrac, a friendly and loud person, Kind Marius with a shy smile and his girlfriend Cosette, who was very alike him in behavior, and many more whose names he did not remember.

Enjolras was, during this night, different from earlier. He was nicer, not as angry as before. Of course he wasn't, this was a whole new scenario all together. On demonstrations you were supposed to be angry. On movie nights, you were supposed to be relaxed.

Enjolras was kinder. He laughed, told jokes, which themselves were quite boring and would be boring if anyone else told them, but he spoke in a way that made the company cry from laughter. He spoke in a way Grantaire never once had encountered.

Every word he spoke had a melody, every sentence was poetry, his voice made of silk and his words of silver. There was a rare beauty in his whole being, not only in his looks but his way of moving, speaking and just existing. It transfixed him.

At the end of the night, Enjolras told him that he was funny. Grantaire wanted it tattooed into his skin so that he would never forget it.

They met more often after that, as the figured in the same circle of friends.

The eight time they met was on Cosette's and Marius' engagement party. It was a small one. Pizza and beer was the main courses, served on porcelain to uphold some sort of formality. Enjolras hugged him as a greeting. He greeted everyone in that way, feeling that it was to stiff and cold to only shake hands. Grantaire had to excuse himself to the bathroom to be able to endure the night with his dignity intact. An adult was not supposed to blush after receiving such a simple thing as a small hug.

It was a nice party. Cosette's foster father came to visit. He was as shy as her, or even shyer. He had sadness in his eyes, and his face bore signs of a harsh life. Grantaire did not know much of Cosette's past, the little he knew was that her foster-father had been homeless before, and that Cosette could not remember anything about her life from before the age of seven.

He did know more about Enjolras. Enjolras was from a wealthy family, the only child and loved his mother. He had a cat as a kid whom he named Marx and he did not go to school for a week after he died. Enjolras was interested in politics and a humanitarian. He agreed with the idea of socialism and saw it as an ideal society to live in, and believed that it could be achieved in the future. He was a dreamer, an idealist. He was compassionate, brave and intelligent. He interfered if someone was in trouble and always had some spare coins to give to people in need, even though he didn't agree with charity as a concept. He believed that it was the state who was responsible for its people and their welfare.

Enjolras could be terrible if he wanted it, when he was angry he was frightening. When he was happy, he was divine. Grantaire felt blessed in his presence. He was aware of that obsession and love for the man was unhealthy and not really sane, but he could not care. It was a better emotion than the melancholy he felt before. (He had always been extreme in his moods and feelings.)

He had filled the emptiness inside with a person he considered his counterpart.

Enjolras told a joke about cats and Grantaire laughed, the other people in the room following him soon. It was not until that moment he realized that he had not been exactly subtle in his feelings for the other man, because he quickly figured out that it was not the joke the others had fun over, but his own reaction to it.

He took a shot of vodka to forget his embarrassment. He was the last one to stay at the party, pouring out his feelings, in a desperate need for advice, over Cosette and her father, who happened to stay to clean up the mess they made.

Their advice was simple and yet hard; Tell him.

Grantaire did not need to. Their relationship came naturally, in a way.

It was the night of the election, the thirteenth time they met, they got together. The gang they had become had gathered in the shared apartment of Enjolras and Combeferre to watch the results. Feuilly had baked Makowiec which all of them ate to drown out the anxious feelings.

It was the first election Grantaire had followed, thanks to the new crowd he associated with. It was also the very first election in which he feared the results. Usually, Grantaire would not even bother to care. It was not a big deal, as there only were two larger parties that could win it. The smaller parties were never big enough to challenge the larger ones. It was comfortable that way, no big surprises and not that huge changes between the election periods. Stability was good, he thought.

This year, however, nothing was stable. The global finical crisis had hit their country hard, the unemployment rate created even more tension. The cuts in the budget, focused on schools and hospitals, did the government no favors and when it was revealed that rich bankers and corrupt politicians had increased their bonuses, the outrage was a fact.

 

This was used by many of the smaller parties to gain voters. Most importantly, it was used by a fascist, nationalistic party who had steadily gained more and more supporters during the months, the pre-election polls indicating that they could very well be the third or even second, largest party after the election.

So they sat together, in front of the television, not even daring to go to the bathroom while more and more of the districts results showed up on the screen. They watched in silence as the percentages went up, higher and higher. When Enjolras left the room in anger, Grantaire followed him quickly. He followed him to the balcony. As soon as they closed the door behind them, Enjolras opened his mouth.

"Nothing ever changes, huh?" He said. "It's the thirties all over again. Will anything ever change?"

To hear him utter those words, that sort of distrust of the future, made Grantaire's heart clench. He did not answer him. He stood there, watching Enjolras shake in anger and fear of what the future would bring.

"What is wrong with our society? What the fuck is going on?". These words were uttered with more aggression than before, Enjolras now shaking from anger. Suddenly, he turned towards the balcony, no longer facing Grantaire but he houses around them instead, the streets next to empty.

"What the fuck are you voting for?", he yelled towards nothing but at the same time everything. "What the fuck are you voting for?!"

All that met them was silence. A deafening silence.

"Do you want to go in and see the results?" Grantaire asked.

"I know how it will end", was the answer he received. "Tomorrow we will have Nazis in our parliament."

That was the bitter truth. Grantaire knew as well as Enjolras how everything would end up, what their country would evolve into. There was no way for them to change in what direction the society would march towards. But he needed to say something, something to break the awful silence, to prevent himself from falling apart completely. He needed to have someone to believe in, he wanted to pretend that there was something that could be done about the awful situation they currently were in. He needed Enjolras to continue the battle, even though it was already lost.

"Don't lose hope just yet", he tried. "We only need to fight harder than ever, right? There is still some time to turn this around. It is four years to the next election; we can turn this around by then."

He hoped that Enjolras would not recognize his own words, sentences similar to those being spoken the very first time they met after he had said that it was too late to change the government’s decision, that their time on the protest was a waste of times. How ironic, that the cynic would comfort the idealist with his own words.

The silence was expected. The hug was not. They stood there, together, arms around each other. They had hugged before, but this time it was different. It felt different in his body, in the overall mood. Without thinking beforehand, he placed a small kiss on the other man’s forehead. And then another one. He kissed away Enjolras tears, kissed him until he was out of breath, never daring to even go close to the area around his mouth unless the other man himself initiated it, which he did, leaving him dizzy. It was a short kiss, an innocent one. They stood together in their embrace a couple of moments more before going in to the apartment again in silence, hand in hand, finding their friends in a shared distress.

Nothing more was said that evening. The tension could be sliced with a knife.

When Grantaire went home, he could finally let out his emotions. He cried and cried until he could not let anymore tears out and his face was even more bloated than usual. He was angry at the world. Angry over the results in the election, angry at the people who voted for them, angry at Enjolras for speaking in a way that implied giving up earlier. Angry at himself for daring to be happy in such dark times. Because somewhere in his sadness, his anger and fear, he was happy over kissing Enjolras. He was happy over his love being returned. He was happy over being in love.

The guilt did not prevent him from falling asleep to the thoughts of Enjolras soft lips against his.

Enjolras tasted like fire.

-

It took not long until the other parties in the parliament began to openly support the fascist party's views. It was a desperate attempt to regain public support, to take away some of that particular party's power and their monopoly over the questions that the public deemed important. Those who refused to suck up and abandoned their ideology for the sake of power quickly quit, leaving the corrupt politicians left. Conservatives got along well with the new party, and the left-wing parties only got closer and closer to a middle ground. There were seven different parties in the parliament, but only on paper. Only in name.

 

It took not long, either, for social norms to change as well. Opinions that used to be taboo were now voiced in public, in trains, media, by teachers and doctors, police and celebrities.

It took only a few weeks for Grantaire to feel uncomfortable outside. He could feel people staring at him outside, their eyes burning into him like coal against his skin.

One day, when on his way towards the supermarket to by some milk for Enjolras, a passerby muttered "terrorist" at him under his breath.

(When he got home, he shaved off the small beard he had grown. He never went outside without his face being smooth again. He wished he could shave away his skin color as well.)

Enjolras moved into his apartment shortly after them getting together. Their friends were happy for their sake. Combeferre jokingly wrote an instruction manual about how Enjolras wanted a household to be run, how he drunk his coffee and what kind of brands Grantaire absolutely never should buy.

It was almost scary how normal everyone behaved. How easy it was to switch from being horrified over the so called "progress" of society, and in the next second joke about the evilness of Nestle. It was nice in a way, to be able to forget for a few minutes.

Enjolras did everything he could to turn the tides. He organized rallies together with the Abaissés, which was what their group of friends called their political movement. They gave out folders around town about what a threat the current politics were against everything every civil right organization had build up during centuries. They were ignored. At times, they were spat in the face or got "communists" shouted at them.

They began to realize how hard it was to change the public opinion and the radicalization of racism, sexism and homophobia. Vandalism of Mosques began to get common. Attacks against LGBTQ-persons were reported daily in independent news, and was described as "disputes" by common media.

It was hard to stop a lit firework from blowing up. At times, it felt like they needed to wait for it all to explode, and build something better from the ruins.

Enjolras never stopped trying to change. His belief in his fellow citizens was strong. He believed that it could be turned around as soon as the economics got better. Unfortunately, it seemed as the employment rate only went higher and higher for every month. The prices went up as well. All of this was used as fuel in the hatred against immigrants.

Grantaire lost his job to make room for a less experienced person of the 'right' ethnicity. Soon after that, he began to drink again. Faced with Enjolras poorly hidden disappointment in him, he drank more and more and more until he no longer could see anything other than the golden crown around his lovers head and could pretend that it was a star he was looking at, or an Angel sent by god to fix the mess of a country he stilled called his home.

In his sober moments he and Enjolras lay side by side in bed in silence, the sound of the other ones heartbeat felt like a lullaby. Grantaire felt safe in Enjolras embrace. It was the only time he felt happy. Sometimes they kissed, sometimes they made love. Most often, they just hugged and talked in hushed voices about fond memories. They rarely fought anymore, which they had done in the earliest stages of their relationships, mostly about politics. They had stopped mentioning that subject at home.

In those moments at home, they could pretend that the world around them wasn't burning.

-

They got married two years after meeting each other. It was a small ceremony. Pizza and beer was served. It was the standard meal for every get together they had with their friends. Enjolras wore a white tuxedo and a large smile. He had never looked more beautiful than he did in their wedding photos.

Enjolras said that Grantaire looked beautiful as well, and he chose to believe it. Maybe beauty was contagious, because he never felt as good about himself as he did when being close to Enjolras.

Enjolras was a Grantaire and Grantaire an Enjolras for only a few weeks before their partnership was revoked by a new law, not that that did stop them from referring to each other as "Husband" and "Husband".

-

Life got better from Grantaire after a while. He managed to get a job at a local newspaper. Enjolras recruited new members to their party and managed to get through with a petition after raising 10 000 signatures. It was a minor one, about something to do with wildlife protection.

For Grantaire, it did not matter. It did not change much. For Enjolras, it was a proof of that he had the power to change something.

-

After being married for three years, Cosette and Marius finally got a baby. They named him Jean, after Cosette’s deceased foster-father, and Grantaire was named godfather. It was one of the proudest moments in his life.

\--

Everything good always ends after a while. Grantaire had known that since he was little. It was naive of him to hope that his time with Enjolras would last.

 

It was their fourth anniversary it happened.

Grantaire had a day off, and had prepared for that specific date for a long time. He had cooked Enjolras favorite meals, he had painted a large picture for him (A picture of their whole gang together, based on a photograph from when times were better, from one of their first movie nights ever) and he had even prepared himself for performing a song as soon as Enjolras came through the door.

Enjolras would get off from work at 6 o'clock. At seven, he was not home yet and Grantaire started to put foil around the food to prevent it from getting cold. At half six, he called Enjolras phone and received to answer. He called again and again, left messages, sent text. He called Combeferre, called Feuilly, Joly, Jehan, everyone Enjolras had ever spoken to.

No one knew his whereabouts.

And then he got the call.

-

As a leader of a minor party, you rarely attract attention. Being a leader of a socialistic party in a society that is extremely right wing, however, is a whole different matter.

Enjolras had worked over-time and was on his way home when grabbed by a group of men that recognized him from a counter protest. They knew two things of him, and two things only. One; that he had a boyfriend, Two; his political views.

They didn't know when they grabbed him that Enjolras in his spare time volunteered for a soup kitchen.

They didn't know when they kicked him in the stomach repeatedly that his boyfriend waited at home for him.

They didn't know when they slit his throat, when he stopped breathing, that they had killed a sun.

They didn't know that his death would be delivered over a phone, that the boyfriend of the man they had slaughtered for fun would never recover from the loss of the only good thing he had in his life.

If they did know, they still wouldn't care.

Grantaire was sure they wouldn't.

\---

It took twenty two years for society to regain its stability. It took twenty two years for things to return to how it was before the crisis, for the fascists to crumble and for people to wake up from the bubble they had lived in for all those years. Twenty two years took it, and then they returned to the state they were in before everything went to hell.

 

When hearing the results of the election, Grantaire went to Enjolras’ grave and cried. Tears of happiness over that the world finally was ready to move on, that change had come. Tears of grief over the fact that the only one of them who seemed to believe that it was possible was the only one who was not there to see it happen.

The day after the election he tattooed the words _"You are funny"_ over his heart. For the first time in what seemed to be forever he didn't fear what tomorrow had in store.


End file.
